Apparel ease distribution analysis using three-dimensional motion capture

When an ease allowance at a body landmark is given, the ease distribution along the circumference at this landmark can still change with the wearing circumstance. This paper investigates both static and dynamic ease distributions of clothes at bust and waist lines by using a three-dimensional motion capture system (3DMCS). Female participants with the same body type were recruited to conduct experiments to examine how ease distributions change with body motions. Specific markers provided with the 3DMCS were adhered to the surfaces of a participant and her clothes along the bust and waist lines, and the coordinates of the markers were tracked by the 3DMCS while the participant walked on a treadmill at different speeds. It was found that the static ease distributions showed different patterns at different body landmark lines. At the bust, the ease tended to concentrate more in the left and right regions, while the ease at the waist appeared to be gathered more in the front and back regions. In the dynamic tests, ease variations at different clothes markers on the waistline exhibited very different changing patterns. The ease variations of the markers in the same region (e.g., left and front) were positively correlated ( r = 0.863), while those in regions symmetrical to the y-axis (left–right) were negatively correlated ( r = –0.738) and those in regions symmetrical to the x-axis (front–back) were weakly correlated ( r = 0.541). Both the frequency and the magnitude of ease variations seemed to be incremental to the walking speed, although the concentration areas of ease remained unchanged.